About ten years ago, I built a little model railway which lived under the stairs and was imaginatively called Under Staires.
It was built in N gauge (which is a scale of 1:148 or half the size of the ‘usual’ model railway gauge of OO).
This size is a little fiddly and it can be difficult to model fine details but it does allow a bit more track in a given footprint.
The model was built up over many months but when the dogs arrived, the space under the stairs was needed for dog beds so the layout was mothballed.
I should say recently, but Sue has been on at me for some time to do something with the old layout (she had in mind selling it) but after a recent remodelling of the office (with the turbo trainer moving into the cinema / home gym) I had a piece of cupboard top crying out for something.
Gauge versus Scale
There is a little misconception over the terms Gauge and Scale. The scale is the ratio of distances on the model to those in real life. In N the scale is 1:148 which roughly translates (mixing measuring systems) to 2mm to a foot.
The standard gauge (the distance between rails) on a full sized railway is 4ft 8½in. which equates to roughly 9mm in N. Thus technically an N Gauge model is also N scale.
When modelling narrow gauge railways, it gets confusing as N gauge track would work well on a larger scale model. A number of models are created in what is known as 009 – OO scale but 9mm gauge (equivalent to 2ft gauge).
It wasn’t a great space but with a bit of drawing and redrawing of plans, I discovered that I could get a continuous loop then add some sidings for a little more interest.
That was back at the beginning of September and but utilising some of the old track work I was able to make a start on laying the permanent way.
As the model is no longer under stair(e)s I’ve name this incarnation Upper Staires – obvious !